A review by emckeon1002
A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow

4.0

Interesting to read Don Winslow's first, after having read his most recent work. This is the first of his Neal Carey novels (and difficult as hell to find an affordable print version). Carey's backstory is positively Dickensian, (as he himself notes). An English lit grad student, he is writing his thesis on Smollett (and is not completely unlike Peregrine Pickle who is referenced repeatedly). The plot is filled with the drugs, sex, corrupt politicians and violence for which Winslow has gained renown, but this early PI is a bit more of the sneering, wiseguy detective who began to find life in the 80's as an ironic homage to Chandler's Marlowe, then Winslow's later slightly-less-sneering ironic detectives who came later.